Anti-Aging News: Are Telomeres the Key to the Fountain of Youth?

We have all seen those gorgeous women who are well in to their 50s yet have supple skin and soft bouncy hair. While these women are probably blessed with great aging-genes, there is hope for us mere mortals. Scientists are touting telomeres as holding the key to the fountain of youth. But just what are telomeres and how can understanding the role of telomeres in aging help us slow down the aging process?

Ok folks. Hold onto your hats because things are going to get technical around here. You want to know what telomeres are? Basically, a telomere is a repeating DNA sequence that is found at the end of the body’s chromosomes. The way telomeres work is by preventing chromosomes from losing base pair sequences at their ends. They also stop chromosomes from fusing to each other.

Without going into facts about telomeres that would only confuse you, I will get straight to the nitty gritty. The significance of telomeres lies in their length. As we age, telomeres grow shorter. Or, put in even simpler terms, the length of telomeres directly corresponds to the age of the cell to which they are attached.

For instance, in human blood cells, the length of telomeres ranges from 8,000 base pairs when we are born to around 3,000 base pairs as we age. If we took a look at the telomeres of elderly people we would note a shocking drop to 1,500 base pairs. To give you some perspective on this, the average chromosome has 150 million base pairs. That’s a massive decline as we age then, isn’t it?

The Long and Short of Telomeres

So how exactly does the telomere length count drop? Look at it this way, each time a cell divides, the average John Doe loses 30 to 200 base pairs from the ends of that cell’s telomeres.

The mortality of humankind becomes apparent when we look at the capabilities of telomeres- each base pair can divide only about 50 to 70 times, becoming progressively shorter until the cells die or become inflicted with the kind of damage that results in cancer.

Thus time a cell divides, around 25-200 telomere are lost. Eventually the telomere becomes too short, leaving it nowhere to go as it can no longer replicate. This means that the cell has become old and begins to die.

Telomeres and Anti-aging

Pretty interesting, huh? So how can we stop the telomeres from shortening? There is a naturally occurring enzyme within the body named telomerase which adds bases to the ends of telomeres. In young cells, telomerase keeps telomeres from wearing down too much. But as cells divide repeatedly, there is not enough telomerase, so the telomeres grow shorter and the cells age. Thus the lack of telomerase is key to what is observed at the age of 60 +; the rapid descent into old age.

The question on everyone’s lips is, could telomerase be used in some way to stop cells from aging? Is it possible to extend the lifespan by preserving or restoring the length of telomeres with telomerase?

Without getting everyone’s hopes up just yet, scientists have carried out research on telomeres that has been fruitful. Scientists have been able to use telomerase to make human cells keep dividing far beyond their normal limit in laboratory experiments, and the cells remain healthy, not showing any signs of genetic damage.

At this stage we are not sure if it is safe to use telomerase in an overall anti-aging process and there are no immediate plans to implement any kind of research into this use of telomerase.  However therapeutic uses of the enzyme look hopeful. For example, it could sometime in the future be used routinely to “immortalize” human cells, making it possible to mass produce any human cell for transplantation, including insulin-producing cells to cure diabetes patients, to produce muscle cells for muscular dystrophy, and also skin cells for people with severe burns and wounds caused by accidents. In terms of further research and the testing of drugs and gene therapies scientists would also be helped by an unlimited supply of normal human cells grown in the laboratory.

Thus we will have to wait and see what the future holds for telomeres in modern science and its pursuit of anti-aging miracles. It will be sometime before we know for sure whether telomeres hold the key to the elusive fountain of youth.

But for now, this helps to explain why some 60 year olds look 40 and some 40 year olds look 60.  I will help you to stay up to date with the latest developments in anti-aging research and technologies as new telomere advances take place.